NationStates Jolt Archive

You know what I hate? Women who are giving birth and half way through, just up and take off. I think I speak for everyone when I say, "Finish what you started, Ladies!"

Have fun reading:

Giving Birth in Chains

America regards itself as an eminently civilized country, but in many states female prisoners who give birth are required to be held in shackles during labor. Besides being grotesquely inhumane, this appalling practice is medically dangerous.

A report by Amnesty International U.S.A. finds that nearly half the state corrections departments — and the Federal Bureau of Prisons — have policies that expressly permit this practice. Prison officials justify the policy by saying that the women are a flight risk, even though many of them are nonviolent offenders who would present little risk, even if they were not doubled over with labor pains or strapped down on a delivery table.

It should not take a genius to see that chaining a woman's feet together or handcuffing her arm and leg to the side of a bed is not a smart thing to do during labor or childbirth. Yet doctors and nurses must sometimes fight with reluctant corrections officers if they want their pregnant patients unchained and effectively treated. Court papers in a lawsuit filed in Arkansas claim that because of resistance by the corrections guard, a mother-to-be remained shackled until she had suffered nerve damage and a permanent back injury.

The primitive practice of chaining women in childbirth should shame us all. As one father put it after his wife, who was serving time for vehicular homicide, gave birth in custody: "It sounds like something from slavery 200 years ago."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/opinion/05sun3.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

Ah, bureaucracy at it's finest.

Hawt.

Someone should do research to see whether this happens in other countries, then dependent on the findings start a petition to the UN. (The real one, as well as the on on NationStates.net)

A woman in labor is hardly in a position to run away.

A woman in labor is hardly in a position to run away.
Women in labor are proven to be quick on their feet and expert at blending into large crowds.

I am not so sure. I saw a show on the discovery channel before about things people have done to try to get out of jail for a few hours, they do things to themselves to get to go to the hospital and they hope for surgery. I wouldn't put it past a woman to try to escape while in labor, I mean you are emotional anyway when you are in labor, and if you thought you could escape so that you wouldn't have to give up your kid...you might just try.

Now, that being said, surely they could just post a guard on the room or something instead of having her strapped down......I wouldn't have wanted to be straped down during labor any more than I already was (with I.V.'s, oxygen, heart moniters, baby moniters, ect.) it's not like she is going to be able to unhook all that so fast and run so fast that someone paying attention wouldn't catch her.

How the UK deals with pregnant offenders -

Security: Women generally present much lower risks than men.

Every woman who is known to be pregnant will be consistently medically assessed and monitored, just as in the community. She may be located in a particular area of the prison dedicated to pregnant women, if the prison in question has such a facility and it is thought necessary for the well being of the mother-to-be and the unborn child. Support will be provided according to individual need. Medical care is given by the local NHS maternity services and mothers give birth in a hospital with the appropriate facilities, local to the prison.

Women in labor are proven to be quick on their feet and expert at blending into large crowds.

Well that one girl finished a damn basketball game...

Ah, bureaucracy at it's finest.
Bureaucracy implies systemic dysfunction. From the article, it's not bureaucracy that's the problem - it's the officiousness and the pedantry on the part of individual corrections officers attending the births.

Of course, since 9/11, officiousness and pedantry have become highly-lauded, positive (and rewarded) personal traits in the eyes of many, so none of this should come as any surprise to the willfully indifferent among us.

My aunt Gina ran 5 miles the morning her contractions started. When she finished running she was fully dialated and the birth only took 1 & 1/2 hours.

A problem of outlook, I think. The need to chain these women is not actually practical. Even if they could get up, who says they could leave the room? Don't they trust their guards to stop a woman who can hardly get up from a couch without help?

No, it's not that. I think it's because they actually think these women are evil. Devilspawn, if you want. It's almost as if they think they aren't human.

Of course that's not how they say it, but there seems to be just a hint of 19th century phrenology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology) in all this.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/graphics/photos/criminal_mind/psychology/crime_motivation/3b.jpg
http://www.crimelibrary.com/graphics/photos/criminal_mind/psychology/crime_motivation/4c.jpg

Thats just horrible. Like said, can't you just put a guard at the door and not put the room on the first floor? Women in labor are already in enough pain with out chains binding them to the bad.

Thats just horrible. Like said, can't you just put a guard at the door and not put the room on the first floor? Women in labor are already in enough pain with out chains binding them to the bad.

Expected find in the Bible thumper belt.

My aunt Gina ran 5 miles the morning her contractions started. When she finished running she was fully dialated and the birth only took 1 & 1/2 hours.

My aunt Gwendolyn swam 5 miles in the Caribbean the morning her contractions started. When she finished swimming she found that she had already given birth and the baby had been adopted by a pack of dolphins. They refused to part with their adoptee until the S.E.A.L.s were called in...

My aunt Gwendolyn swam 5 miles in the Caribbean the morning her contractions started. When she finished swimming she found that she had already given birth and the baby had been adopted by a pack of dolphins. They refused to part with their adoptee until the S.E.A.L.s were called in...
Aunt... eek eek eek... Gwendolyn...?


Mommy?

It should not take a genius to see that chaining a woman's feet together or handcuffing her arm and leg to the side of a bed is not a smart thing to do during labor or childbirth.

I'm sorry but why?

why would a woman need the free movment of the limbs durring childbirth?

Schrandtopia']I'm sorry but why?

why would a woman need the free movment of the limbs durring childbirth?
First study this picture:

http://www.curlyprose.co.uk/images/Small-hole.jpg

Then study this picture:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/Duran_duran_big_thing.jpg

My aunt Gwendolyn swam 5 miles in the Caribbean the morning her contractions started. When she finished swimming she found that she had already given birth and the baby had been adopted by a pack of dolphins. They refused to part with their adoptee until the S.E.A.L.s were called in...

thats too funny..thanks!

as to the op..plain medevil and i am embarressed to be an american at this minute.
i have been in jail,and in the hospital thanks to the cops that beat the crap out of me,and i was allowed to be uncuffed and examined and xrayed.
they did have a cop present at all times..shit even the doctor was giving the cops dirty looks because they got me pretty good,but that said,between my shattered cheekbone and three broken ribs..i wasnt running very far..lol
but as a father of 2,a pregnant women aint getting very far with the meagerest of observation by the leo on duty.

it seems to be the state,as usual...treating non violent offenders as animals...in the name of getting tough on crime....and then wonder why people hate the cops!

i have never..ever committed a crime against anyone..ever..yet i was beaten into a hospital by the police,and if hadn't had money to prove my innocence(kinda backward) i would be an innocent man in jail now..being treated as an animal.
so politicians can act tough on crime like that retard in arizona..some sick ass sheriff that is a total tool.
but he gets elected by keeping everyone scared,like they all do...scared of a pregnant women with an armed cop standing there..how fucking pathetic.
grrrrr:headbang: